The W-Files: The Madness and the Darkness
by Talory
Summary: Basically this is the first case that Scully and Fatone are on. Please see my website (www.geocities.com/malsers) for the actual comic strip.
1. A New Beginning

WF1 __

This... This is my baby. What do I mean, you ask? Well...one day I started a strange comic strip with my webcam that involves my Dana Scully action figure and my Joey Fatone Marionette. Check it out at www.geocities.com/malsers 

Anyway, one day I got the inspiration to write the story of their first case together and here it is. There will be more to it, I promise. The funny thing is...this baby is writing itself ;) 

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DISCLAIMER: Dana Scully is not mine, nor is Walter Skinner, Fox Mulder, the Lone Gunmen et al. They all belong to Fox and Chris Carter. Joey Fatone is not mine either ::sigh:: he belongs to himself, JIVE records, and whoever his significant other is. 

ENJOY! ~Mal 

The rain seeped in through the roof of the dark, archaic cabin. Outside the darkness of the storm had created an almost eerie illusion, especially with the occasional clash of thunder or a flash of lightning. A man stood alone on the back porch shivering as the cold air came around him. He refused to enter the cabin for there was something in there more vile than anything he had ever seen in his life. Even though the wind was creating an intense sound in the distance, he could hear it grunting and moving around inside. It was hunting him. He thought about leaving, but he found there was no point. The creature would simply hunt him down as he tried to flee the woods. After all it did manage to chew through the radiator hoses and the break like of his Explorer and it had chewed through several trees at the end of his driveway and when they fell they landed on top of each other, creating a dangerous, almost inpenetrable fortress. 

Suddenly the door swung open and as the man turned, he saw his life flash before his eyes. 

****

THE W-FILES: 

The Madness and the Darkness 

CHAPTER ONE: A NEW BEGINNING 

Dana Scully stared at the poster that was on the wall in front of her: a shiny spaceship in a forest skyline with writing that read "I Want To Believe" in large, white, block letters. She sighed heavily as she pondered whether or not she should take down her late partner's poster. In her hands was a large cardboard box filled with items that once belonged to Fox Mulder and that she was taking home for safe keeping. Part of her didn't want to believe that Mulder had died yet the other part knew it had to come at some point in time. She turned around, after deciding to leave the poster on the wall, and stared across the way at a fish tank. 

Mulder's fish tank. She had brought it to the office to add more life to the basement room. She had hoped that John Doggett would still be her partner, yet he was moved to a training class in Quantico and now the X-Files consisted of nothing more than Dana Scully and several hundred unexplained case files. Slowly she sat down and began to sob quietly. 

For the first time ever in her FBI career she was alone. The man she loved was dead and all that had been there for her seemed to disappear or be reassigned. Even her child had died of complications, after all humans were never designed to support an alien child to full term. As she reached for a tissue there was a light knock on the door. "Come in," she said, trying to hide the sorrow from her voice. 

The door entered and in walked a tall, balding robust man of about 50. He adjusted his gold rimmed glasses as he spoke to her. "I found a new partner for you, Scully. He's more or less fresh out of Quantico. Bright bright boy. He, ah, _solved_ the McNelson kidnapping not too long ago." 

Scully raised her eyebrows for she knew just who Walter S. Skinner was talking about. "You've got to be kidding me." 

"No. I feel he will be a valuable addition to the X-Files and I've spoken with Doggett and he feels that you two will get along just fine. I'm sure that Mulder would agree." 

"When does he 'move in' here?" She added with a small laugh. 

"Today. In fact he's on his way here...." 

Skinner was interrupted by a loud crash on the stairs and several thuds mixed with "ows" as something quickly went down the stairs. "Now" Skinner finished with a sigh. 

"Shit," came a voice from the corridor. 

Both Scully and Skinner walked outside the office to see what had happened. At the bottom of the stairs was a young man with short spiked dark brown hair with a matching goatee. He stood up slowly, rubbing his backside as he did so. His blue suit was now disheveled and he started walking slowly with a light limp. "Are you all right?" Asked a concerned Scully, who was convinced she had seen him somewhere before. 

He then straightened up his posture and groaned as he said "Oh yeah. I'll be fine." He opened his eyes, which Scully noticed were are a deep brown, and looked around at his surroundings and then up the stairwell in which he had slipped. "Yay. Basement office... I don't think I'll be taking the stairs anymore." 

Skinner chuckled. He didn't tell Scully that he was fond of her new partner. His sense of humor and intelligence had impressed Skinner since he first met him. "I'd like you to meet Agent Scully. Dana Scully this is Joey Fatone your new partner." 

She was shocked and asked if he was the same Joey Fatone from N'Sync. 

"The same." 

"Why join the Bureau?" 

"It's a long story really. I gained an intense interest in forensic science and criminology when we were on tour. After college I went straight to the Academy. It really stuck, especially after my first taste of forensics." 

"And that was?" Scully was curious. 

"One night after a concert in Denver someone tried to kill our opening band and instead shot a fan, paralyzing her for life. I wound up helping the authorities on the case and found some vital clues. Eventually the killer was found and the city of Denver thanked me. By that time I had decided as to where my future lie." 

Scully was impressed and even more so when Skinner added, "He was the best of the best in Quantico. The Directors really had their eyes on him. Well I'm going to leave both of you now. Oh and Scully," he handed her a folder, "here's a case for you." 

As Skinner walked off, Scully motioned for Fatone to follow her into the office. As he walked in he first noticed the poster and slightly smiled. As he looked around he heard the sound of bubbles and eventually saw the fish tank in the corner. Scully cleared her throat and as he looked up he noticed she was standing next to a vacated desk. "I take it that's mine?" She nodded. "So... How long have you worked on the X-Files now?" 

"In all honesty I've lost count. I'm guessing 12 years now... No...maybe 13." 

"Wow." 

"So did you know you were going to be working in this area?" 

He nodded. "Oh yes. In fact I _requested_ to work here." 

"Why?" 

"Well...after I found out that Justin Timberlake is NOT from Memphis, TN or even Earth for that matter I became a full believer. There's something out there..." 

"Oh no...if you start saying anything about how someone in your family was abducted by aliens__" 

"You mustn't worry about that. As far as I know my family is free of alien probes. At any rate I've had a ton of experiences in the paranormal. I felt it was only fitting." 

"I see," Scully mumbled as she sat down at her desk. Even through her past experiences with Mulder she was just as skeptical as ever. Perhaps she simply wanted to deny what she couldn't explain or perhaps she was trying to put the memories of the past far from her mind. She opened a drawer in her desk and looked inside. A small name plate meant for a desk glared back at her. She stared at the words that covered it. 

Fatone noticed her staring in what seemed to be space. Curious he quietly leaned over her shoulder to see what she was staring at. The painted name plate was the center of attention. _Fox Mulder_ it read. He frowned sadly for he knew the story of the doomed FBI agent. It was also then that he realized that Scully must have been, and must still be, deeply in love with Mulder. He sat down at his desk and stared for a bit at the wall. A photograph of big foot loomed over his head and next to it was a newspaper clipping about bigfoot sitings in Oregon. He looked at other areas of the wall taking keen interest in a story about vampires in a small newspaper called "The Lone Gunmen." A small snicker left his mouth as he thought "How can 'lone gunman' be plural?" 

Scully stood up suddenly and turned to him with a manilla folder in hand. "This was on my desk when I came in this morning. I assume it's our first case." She handed it to him and something slid out and hit the floor. He looked down to see a CD. After picking it up he began to flip through the case file. Inside were pictures that at first seemed rather disturbing but soon began to become more of a familiarity with him once they all began looking the same. He frowned and then looked at the disk that was in the file. 

"I wonder what's on this." 

"I was just thinking the same," said Scully as she walked towards him. "I would suggest that we use my computer but the cdrom drive is jammed again." 

"My laptop is at my old desk upstairs. I need to get my things anyway. I'll be right back." He returned the file to Scully and then darted swiftly up the stairs. Just moments later he returned with a box and a laptop case. "Didn't fall this time," he said with a smile and a wink. He wasted no time at all as he set the box and case on his desk. "We'll just use battery power for right now." After booting the machine up he opened the cdrom drive and placed in the disk. When he went to start it nothing happened. He scratched his head. 

"Must be blank." 

He shook his head. "No, something's on it." He looked around the room and saw a dvd player and a tv in a corner. Suddenly he took the disk out and walked over to the unit. 

"What are you doing?" Then it hit Scully. The disk was a dvd. "Brilliant," she mumbled. 

He turned everything on and placed the disk inside. Immediately an image appeared. A man of about 40 was sitting in front of a camera connected to his computer (this was obvious because the mouse and keyboard where in the shot). He was shaking violently and there was a booming sound coming from the background. "To whoever find this," he began, his voice quivering with fear, "this is the last anyone will hear from me. It's after me... It's coming tonight. There's nothing tha---" suddenly the screen went blank. 

"I'll bet you anything the power was knocked out." Fatone looked at the file in his hands and flipped to the first picture that was attached to a sheet of paper with information on it. "James Smith, 45. His mutilated body was found outside his cabin in Raleigh, North Carolina by his brother Charles." He examined the photograph and then handed it to Scully. "That was 2 weeks ago. Every night since then someone has been found dead and mutilated in the same way that Mr. Smith was all over North Carolina." 

"Well," she began after sighing heavily, "it's obvious this is the work of a serial killer." 

"One would think so...but listen to this... 'Authorities found signs of gnawing on all victims.'" 

"Ok...a cannibalistic serial killer." 

"Perhaps," said Fatone with a small smirk. "But I think that cannibalistic serial killer doesn't begin to describe what we are dealing with." 

She groaned. Suddenly she realized that she was dealing with another Mulder. A staunch believer in the supernatural who, in some way or another, had to prove to the world that we shouldn't fear what we don't understand. She laughed quietly and then told him that he reminded her of her old partner. 

"Doggett or Mulder?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"Mulder of course." 

"Ah. Well...I guess that could be a good thing." He pulled out the chair that was with his desk, squinting in torment as the wheels squeaked in a manner that sounded like claws going down a chalkboard, and sat. He reached in the box he brought with him and pulled out a black glasses case. He opened it and slipped on a small pair of thin silver glasses with oval frames. He turned to Scully briefly to make sure he could see through them. "My reading glasses," he said, "But I only use them on the computer." Sure enough he began working on his laptop. Finally he motioned for her to come look over his shoulder and as he removed his glasses she saw what he had done. "Here's a map of North Carolina. Now watch this." He grabbed the case file, looked at it briefly and then marked the locations and dates of the 15 murders. Then he hit an icon that wasn't labeled with anything other than a magnifying glass. Suddenly lines began forming in the order the murders took place. After they stopped, a strange pattern was emerging. Fatone and Scully were puzzled. 

"I've seen this symbol." 

"As have I," said Fatone. He stared at the screen. The pattern was that of what seemed to be an arrow that was missing two sides of the point on each end. One half was pointing north, the other south. 

Suddenly Scully sat down at her computer and did a fast search. She knew where she had seen it before. "It's a rune." 

"Oh?" 

She nodded as Fatone got up and stood beside her, looking at the screen. There in front of them was a picture of an ancient rune. Underneath was a single solitary word, ending, with a hyperlink on it. She clicked it and immediately they were given a detailed meaning. But the only thing that Fatone paid attention to was the word "dying." Scully then read the information from the site aloud, " 'The Yew was a tree sacred to Odin, god of the Runes, who gathered souls for the trip to the underworld. In this aspect, the Yew symbolizes the importance of death and endings. The Yew tree was also used to make weapons of protection and to feed the fires that kept people warm and safe.'" 

Fatone frowned. What type of psychopath, or psychopathic creature where they dealing with? "It doesn't sound scary or anything..." 

Scully laughed. "Well it doesn't have to automatically have an evil meaning attached to it for someone to make it evil. You should know that." 

"And I do... I was just wanting more excitement." He smiled as he winked at her and chortled. Suddenly he sighed and sat back down at his desk. "So basically...we're dealing with some pagan creature or perhaps a person who might be trying to place the blame on a pagan." His voiced trailed off toward the end as he tinkered more on his computer. "Aha! Done!" 

Scully was puzzled. "What's done?" 

He smiled and told her that he had just booked them a flight to North Carolina with the FBI travel office. 

Scully sighed heavily and then laughed. "You don't even know what we're looking for. According to the file there are no witnesses...what are you looking for that hasn't been covered?" 

"I think we'll find out when we get there." 

"You're a spur of the moment type aren't you?" 

"Aquarian... So yeah." 

****

*** 

A few hours later the two were on a red eye flight to Raleigh, NC. Scully was none to thrilled with her seat on the plane. She found herself in the window seat next to Fatone, who was fast asleep and snoring profusely. She herself desired to catch a little shut eye but found it impossible to do so with the constant snores of her new partner. Instead she tried to read over the case file but at one point found her partner falling on top of her. After pushing the sleeping Fatone off she put the file away and looked around. Almost every passenger was dozing and she could see a flight attendant in the back reading an issue of Cosmo and eating a chocolate eclair. Scully's eyes had grown incredibly heavy yet as soon as she began to fall asleep her partner would snort rather loudly. 

Finally she gave up any attempt to rest and stared out the window instead. Why did they have to fly? she wondered. And what kind of insane partner was she stuck with now, other than a man who used to be in a boy band? She gave up on answers and, instead, decided that the world was too crazy, to insane to give any information that might be conclusive or, better yet, truthful. Mulder would always say, "The truth is out there" yet she now wondered if there was any truth in anything these days. 

She was suddenly startled when her partner spoke, "There are no facts, there is no truth. Not anymore anyway. I learned that a long time ago. It's all data to be manipulated." 

"How," she stuttered as she began, "h-how did you know what I was thinking?" 

He laughed and leaned forward in his seat, pulling out his jacket which had tucked itself into the back of the chair, "Because you said it out loud, silly." 

"I did, Agent Fatone?" She stared at him for a moment, surprised he could've heard anything she said over his loud grunts as he slept. 

He simply nodded as he looked up at her, his brown eyes gazing into hers, "Yep. In fact, you said, 'the truth is out there.' And please, call me Joey. I'm not used to formalities yet." 

Scully looked down for a moment before speaking again. She felt her heart race as the image of her former partner entered her mind and then she spoke, "Mulder believed in the truth. He went to the ends of the earth looking for it." 

"What did he find?" he asked coolly. 

She looked up at him, her eyes red from the lack of sleep and becoming redder with the tears that she was fighting back. "I don't know really. He found," she took a deep breath before continuing, "a cancer of lies in society. He found a government that created truths...that made people believe the lie..." she bit her lip, not knowing where to go from there. 

"But Mulder was brave. He knew what he was up against. He was determined to find some proof that the world as we know it is nothing but falsehoods. And if you ask me he did a damn good job of it." 

She was shocked. Her new partner actually had studied Mulder before? "I take it that you are familiar with Mulder's cases." 

"Some of them. I know the gist," he said with a wink, " and I think that his work proved the vast amount of data manipulation in the world." He leaned over her suddenly and looked out the window. She followed his gaze and noticed a small patch of red/orange on the horizon. "Wonderful! The sun is rising. Out of the darkness and into the light, always exciting." 


	2. The Mist of the Dawn

CHAPTER TWO: THE MIST OF THE DAWN  ****

CHAPTER TWO: THE MIST OF THE DAWN

Fatone stepped off the plane first and encountered a thick, opaque fog. He coughed as he walked through it and into the terminal of the airport. Behind him he heard Scully coughing as well. As they both made their way into the airport, Fatone stopped to look out the window. All around them was a low lying fog like he had never seen before in his life. It moved as slowly as smoke in a crowded bar room and was as thick as clouds that hung in the pictures of opium dens in the late 19th century. 

That's when he saw it. Something was moving in the fog in a very non-human like manner. The movements seemed like those of a snake, or at times a dog. He dropped his bag and moved closer to the window, his hands touching the cold glass, immune to the chilled sensation they were receiving. Scully stared at him curiously before asking him what was the matter. He turned to her and spoke, "Down there, in the fog look__" he looked back, but whatever he had seen was gone. "Never mind. Must be the lack of sleep." 

She glanced out the window and then back at him, "More than likely it is. I guess then we should be going." She watched him rub his eyes as he turned to her and after he had finished they walked away, shrugging off the unusual fog and the strange movements within it that Fatone had seen. Scully noticed how tired her partner was as they walked towards the nearest rental car desk. As she approached the attendant he made it a point to collapse on a nearby bench. As she returned he had once again drifted off into a light slumber and when she touched his arm slightly he woke with a jolt. 

"WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE HOW WHY!??" He exclaimed, looking around nervously. Once he had realized that he had been asleep for such a brief period of time, he blushed, grabbed his carry-on bag and headed towards the luggage terminal with Scully in tow. 

"Are you all right, Fa__" she stopped herself as she remembered his request, "Joey?" 

"Oh yeah," he responded, "just peachy, you?" 

She eyed him, stopping at the luggage terminal as he nearly walked past it. He turned sharply and stood next to her, hopping from foot to foot. "I'm always a little hyper when I first wake," he said with a wink. She bit her lip as she tried, desperately, not to laugh. Suddenly he stopped and looked at her, "I know I saw something, Scully. What I don't know. But it was there... I know it was." 

"That's a Mulder statement if I ever heard one," she mumbled quietly, biting her lip in the process. 

"I don't know. I really don't know." He watched the luggage move and suddenly their bags appeared. "Hallelujah! My luggage isn't in Cancun!" 

Scully stood there for a moment after picking up her luggage and playing with the rental car key in her hand. She had started thinking of Mulder again. Fatone watched her, stayed silent for several moments before saying, "He meant a lot to you?" 

She looked at him, surprised that he once again new her thoughts. She nodded somberly and replied, "For a good majority of my career he was the only partner I knew. Sure I had other partners but...there was something special about him." 

He nodded and held out his hand in front of her, which she placed the car key in. "You rest, I'll drive," he said, as though confirming what had just taken place. She nodded as they turned towards the exit and the parking lot the car was located in. 

*** 

As they drove through downtown Raleigh Scully dozed in the passenger seat. Fatone passed perhaps a dozen hotels and motels but none of them gave him any particular feeling. His instincts told him to drive on to the outskirts of town and as he did so he thought of various things over and over again in his mind: namely the creature of the mist and the case file. The more he thought on it the more the creature seemed to become a figment of his imagination. 

Suddenly he slowed down. On his right was a small motel, well kept and rather friendly looking. His intuition told him to stop there and as he pulled into a parking space, Scully woke up. "We're stopping?" she asked groggily. 

"Yes. Don't know why we're stopping here...but something was telling me to." 

She looked at him, puzzled, and spoke again, "How far are we from the crime scene?" 

He bit his lip, looked at the miles traveled on the car, then consulted the file and map. He mumbled to himself, looking up every now and then, then flipped through the file for the symbol they had discovered. "Twenty miles from there...twenty miles from all of them I think." 

Scully couldn't believe it. She looked over his shoulder and quickly estimated. He was right. "How did you do that?" 

"I don't know," he replied with a shrug. "I was just thinking about the mist of the dawn and the creature I saw in it then the case and suddenly my mind was like 'stop here' and so I did. It happens a lot... I'll let my intuition take over and just think and concentrate on the road ahead, not caring where I wind up but I always get there. Tour bus drivers hated me because suddenly I'd yell stop or something like that." 

Scully looked at him, then looked towards the motel in front of them. In the window of the main office stood an elderly woman and a man, presumably her husband. After opening the door she looked back at Fatone and said, "We shouldn't keep them waiting. They're probably wondering what were doing out here." 

He watched her close the door and slowly he opened his. He kept the file in his hands as he stood on the gravel beneath him. _There's something important here_, he thought to himself. As he stood he looked around, surveying everything in the vicinity. Woods. Dense, thick forested areas that stretched as far as the eye could see. With the exception of the occasional car that passed and the noise from inside the motel, there was an odd silence that surrounded the area. No birds were singing. There were no animal sounds whatsoever. He frowned and even though his instincts told him that this hotel was safe to stay at, an overwhelming fear engulfed him. Slowly he walked to the office and, after opening the metal door to enter, stood next to Scully. 

"My partner and I need two rooms," began Scully, showing her badge, apparently she had waited on him. 

"FBI? You must be here to investigate that murder over in Raleigh," said the man behind the counter. The woman next to him pulled out a box containing forms and keys. "Been readin' about it in the paper almost every morning. Bad, bad things nowadays." The woman handed Scully two keys and asked both agents to sign the form in front of them. 

"I'll just need the government account number before you check out. Funny, we've had quite a few government people stay here," said the woman, nodding all the while. 

"It seems like a nice, quiet place," noted Fatone, taking the pen in his hand and signing. 

"Oh," she said to the agents, "it is. Such a quiet, quiet place. Not even a town. Just us out here, ain't that right paw?" 

"Eh? Oh... Right right." 

"So," began Fatone, glancing at Scully before looking back at the inn keepers, "the forest out there looks rather large yet I didn't hear a single sound from it...any clue why?" 

Scully looked at him curiously as the couple nodded. "We don't know why it's so quiet," began the man, "It's just that one day, back in...oh...'97, the birds stopped singin'! Strangest thing. Like we're in a bubble." 

Fatone just nodded and took a key from his partner. "Well, I'm beat. I think I need a nap." He nodded at the couple, then turned and headed back to the car. 

"Such a strange boy," said the woman. Scully could only nod in agreement. 


End file.
